Baroness McIntosh of Pickering
Main Page: Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Baroness McIntosh of Pickering's debates with the Department for Transport
Rail Network (Disruption)
Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr McLoughlin
The hon. Gentleman is renowned for his rose-tinted glasses, which are now returning him to a period when there were 750 million passenger journeys a year. Last year there were 1.6 billion, and I regard that as a tremendous success. More people are using the railways in this country than have done so for many a generation. It is only the hon. Gentleman—along with, perhaps, other Members who are sitting with him on that Bench—who looks back with rose-tinted glasses to a period when everything was fine.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend explain from which budget the fines and compensation will be paid? Is it not perverse that the budget that should be paying for these very improvements is to be used to compensate the companies that have been inconvenienced? Will my right hon. Friend look very closely at the way in which the Office of Rail Regulation has operated since the changes were made, to establish whether it is fit for purpose and is holding Network Rail to account?
Mr McLoughlin
I think that the ORR does a good job in holding Network Rail to account, but I will of course take seriously what my hon. Friend has said about its performance. If she wants to send me further details of her complaints, I will certainly consider them.